ὃ ἑώρακεν κ. ἤκ. In His pre-existence with God; John 3:11; John 1:18. He has immediate knowledge of τὰ ἐπουράνια. Τοῦτο, precisely this is the substance of His witness: comp. John 14:13. This use of a retrospective pronoun for emphasis is frequent in S. John 5:38; John 6:46; John 7:18; John 8:26; John 10:25; John 15:5.

καὶ … οὐδεὶς λαμβ. The tragic tone again; see on John 1:5, and comp. John 3:11. ‘No man’ is an exaggeration resulting from deep feeling: comparatively speaking none, so few were those who accepted the Messiah. Comp. the similar exaggeration on the other side, John 3:26, ‘all men come to Him.’ These extreme contradictory statements, placed in such close proximity, confirm our trust in the Evangelist as faithfully reporting what was actually said. He does not soften it down to make it look plausible.

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Old Testament